Water woes are everywhere in WA

As they say in the classics, the proof of the plumbing is in the drinking. Well, no one actually says that, but given the original proverb is one of the most mangled in our lexicon, it seems apt.

Instead of correctly saying “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”, many people cut its length — and destroy its meaning — by uttering “the proof is in the pudding”.

That pedantry aside, this is a longwinded way of getting into how we prove that the level of lead in our drinking water is not harmful.

The proof might actually be in the plumbing. To be precise, in the percentage of lead legally allowed in the principally copper and zinc alloy of brass tap fittings.

Once again, the McGowan Government has tied itself in knots by reacting to misleading testing done on water in buildings under its control, this time some new schools.

Testing has cleared 10 of WA's 11 new schools of lead contamination in their water.

The West Australian

VideoTesting has cleared 10 of WA's 11 new schools of lead contamination in their water.

But the focus has been on the water rather than the source of the lead.

As I tried to point out using expert evidence in September, the Government has kept the new Perth Children’s Hospital closed because of a faulty testing regime for its tap water.

And last week it fell for dodgy testing again, with Education Minister Sue Ellery banning the use of water from taps at 11 new schools and sending bottled supplies there instead.

Within days that crisis was over, while the PCH one lingers. Why? Because enough water had flushed through the taps at the schools to give a consistent reading below the Australian guideline.

And experts say that would have happened at the hospital if a correct testing procedure had been used rather than one designed by the Health Department.

The truth is that many Perth homes probably would not pass the testing procedures used on the PCH taps.

It comes after a lead scare in WA schools.

The West Australian

VideoIt comes after a lead scare in WA schools.

None of this lead issue is particularly new. Back in 1993, this newspaper caused a stir by putting on page one a report by a leading CSIRO scientist saying many new homes had high levels of lead in their water because it took five years to flush it out of the plumbing.

Dr Brian Gulson said 10 litres of watershould be run off every morning to clear the system of lead if the taps had been unused overnight or throughout the day.

He told the Perth congress of the Australia New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science that if water was lying overnight in household pipes and taps, its lead content could be up to 30 times that normally found in tap water. I remember that report well because one of the newspaper’s directors was so enraged he wanted me sacked as editor for publishing it.

In 2016, a Macquarie University study in Sydney found 8 per cent of homes tested exceeded the lead limit of 0.1mg/litre set in the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

Importantly, the researchers tested water before and after it passed through brass or stainless steel taps. Lead only showed up in water from the brass taps.

Perth water engineer Brian Stone, who I quoted at length in September, has been trying to convince WA Government officials that the Health Department testing procedure — which is not set under the ADWG — is the problem.

To lessen any fears, Stone notes that the Australian guideline has a 500 per cent in-built safety factor, such is the concern with lead toxicity, and the WA issue is about only slightly elevated levels.

He contends, among many other criticisms, the department’s use of 250ml samples instead of one litre as recommended by the internationally adopted US Environmental Protection Agency rules exaggerated lead content by 60 per cent.

And he accuses the department of arbitrarily adopting a 95th percentile “control limit” for its lead testing, which had the effect of changing the ADWG guideline level.

When Stone recalculated the department’s data, omitting in-built biases in collection and interpretation, he found there was no problem.

Chief Health Officer Tarun Weeramanthri has unconvincingly rejected all criticisms of his testing protocol in submissions to a parliamentary inquiry on PCH problems.

But in his latest private report, Stone raises a much bigger problem.

“There has been little interest in Perth (and elsewhere in Australia) relative to changing our plumbing code,” he says.

“The issue has been evident for more than 20 years but it was generally regarded as not serious. The sudden interest in Perth was due to the fact that the institution was a children’s hospital.

“The study at the hospital was misguided. The problem in our homes could be far more serious.

“The US EPA rule is aimed at taps in homes, where more than 90 per cent of water is consumed.”

Stone says the US EPA allows only 0.5 per cent lead in brass fittings, whereas taps in Australia have 2 to 4 per cent.

Lead is allowed because it makes the brass more malleable.

That doesn’t seem like a good enough reason.

“If there is a problem in Perth, it could have been completely averted if the plumbing code had reduced the bare metal area of brass fittings,” Stone says.

“All that would have been necessary would have been to require that brass plumbing fittings be lined with an approved non-metallic coating such as polyurethane or epoxy.

“It is low-cost and effective and an accepted lining for water supply components.

“WA Health would gain considerable recognition if it initiated a requirement for lining brass plumbing fittings.”

The implications of Stone’s unchallenged views are enormous.

If he’s right, WA taxpayers have lost tens of millions of dollars on a hospital that should have been opened long ago.

And the recent hubbub in our schools would not have happened.

An inquiry by the WA Parliament’s Labor-dominated public accounts committee into the PCH problems, including the water supply, is due to report by March 22. It should make interesting reading.

But the issue of lead in our water is much bigger than the committee’s limited horizons.